Sunday Chimes #144 - Southend defeat spells the end

Pompey`s season effectively fizzled out yesterday when not only did they slip to an emphatic defeat at Southend`s Roots Hall but they lost Gareth Evans and Brett Pitman to injury and Nathan Thompson for three games after a straight red card.

Pompey turned out an unchanged side and after a promising start found themselves two down in twelve minutes. First Matt Clarke putting through his own goal under pressure from Shayon Harrison. Almost immediately Jason Demetriou lashed home a pass from Stephen McLaughlin.

Ten minutes before the break Evans bundled home a Lowe cross but was injured in the process and replaced by Connor Ronan.

Pompey`s hopes were ended when Thompson was shown a straight red halfway through the second period and a few minutes later Pitman limped off to be replaced by Hawkins. Demetriou then finished off the blues with five minutes left.

Jackett told the club`s official site "It`s too many games for us now without a clean sheet and we`ve conceded three times on this occasion. We started well and Conor had the first chance, but they then got into our half twice and we gifted Southend two goals.

"It was very brittle for us defensively - and that`s been the case throughout January and February. It has to improve. We have to gives ourselves a basis to build on. If your goals against column is zeroes and ones then you give yourselves a chance. But we`re giving them away at the moment, which is frustrating and it`s undermining our confidence. It leaves a mountain for us to climb and this game was only a reflection of what we`ve seen over the past couple of months.

On Thompson`s red card Jackett said: "It was slightly high and so it didn`t surprise me when the referee showed the red card. There will now be opportunities for other players and we had to substitute Pitman and Evans. We`ll see whether they can make Tuesday or not."

February 18th

Some dates always stir memories like birthdays anniversaries etc.. One that always sticks in my mind is 18 February and the year in question was 1967. The reason for this is it was the first time I had followed Pompey at a First Division ground.

The stadium was White Hart Lane and Pompey had been drawn to meet Spurs in the FA Cup 4th round. To get there it took three games with Hull City the second replay being won at Coventry`s Highfield Road - the trilogy attracted over 80,000 fans too.

The build up to the big day included a Spurs` fan writing to the Football Mail advising fans that White Hart Lane often had large queues by midday and suggesting of fans arrived early. British Rail ran a whole fleet of extra changes and when we arrived at the ground by 11am the area was thronging with thousands of Pompey fans and the gates were opened early to allow them into the ground and by 1pm the Park Lane End was packed with a large swaying horde of blue decked fans. The atmosphere was incredible and eventually the gate were locked with 57,910 inside including an estimated 25,000 from the South Coast - Spurs did not exceed that attendance in the fifty years until the old ground was closed!

The game was a bit of a disappointment with of missing key players in Albert McCann and Frank Haydock. Spurs won 3-1 with two goals from Jimmy Greaves and a header from Alan Gilzean, Ron Tindall replied for Pompey. I still declare that one of Greaves` goals was yards offside too.

SAF

Just when you thought that Pompey`s recent history was dead and buried out of the blue come a real surprise with the hews that Sulaimen Al Fahim has been jailed for five years.

The reason that SAF, as I dubbed him at the time, has been deprived of his freedom is that he stole the £5m that he used to purchase Pompey from his wife!

SAF will always be remembered a strange character by those who met him - I did on a couple of occasions with other members of the Pompey Virtual Alliance - a group of Pompey Internet writers put together by Colin Farmery as the club faltered. On one occasion he was famously late before being whisked in by his minders and almost as quickly he was gone.

He was obviously a man of means but due to the recession all his assets were in bricks and mortar and thus he 'borrowed` the money from his spouse. Just another sad episode in what seems a never-ending saga.

Next week

On Tuesday night Pompey travel to Fleetwood Town`s Highbury stadium for just the second time. The previous visit back in 2014 ended in a 3-1 defeat with Jed Wallace, on as a sub, scoring for the blues. That completed a double for the home side who went on to win promotion to League One.

On Saturday the club just seven miles from Fleetwood, Blackpool visit Fratton Park. Unlike their neighbours though the Tangerines have met Pompey on sixty-eight occasions stretching back to 1924.

Pompey have had the better of recent meetings at Fratton and have not been beaten since 1971 a run of nine games.

And finally... it was going inTo Greece this week, where AEK Aethens striker Sergio Araujo treats us to some truly atrocious finishing. The forward somehow prevented a mis-cleared cross, that was destined to go in, from finding the net. He'll Be Disappointed With That.

Comments

1

Sorry but there is only one man to blame Jackett! we now have a squad full of kids and loanee's most of whom can't get in the side its criminal the experience he's got rid of, we were well placed xmas his failure to strenghten midfield especially when Danny Rose got injured has cost us big time. His answer was to bring in 3 kids and a injury prone goal keeper which we did't need, he still does'nt know what system he wants to play or his best side, well dont bother looking Mr Jackett you havent got one. To say i'm angry is an understatement, anybody who thinks this man is going to suddenly put a promotion winning side together next year is ga ga.

Even our only win at MK Dons we looked suspect every time they put us under pressure. No discipline, no spark, no drive, no impetus from the manager. This season is nosediving to disaster and we could well be relegated because of a truly abysmal manager who simply lacks what it takes to manage a team. That season at wolves he must have been extremely lucky with the squad he had at his disposal and the competition must have been awful that year. Jackett just stands there and does nothing while it all goes wrong on the pitch in front of him, the players don't listen to him or respect him, and neither do the supporters now. He failed badly in the transfer window because no one wants to play for him. Sack this turd before he destroys this club. The Eisners won't do it though as they're too busy in the U.S to care, and don't want to spend money on sacking people. I would happily chip 200 quid in to a crowd fund to pay up Jacketts sacking costs if it means we can avoid relegation. What a mess. Jackett should be banned from ever managing a football club again he is that bad.

To play devil's advocate: Jackett obviously knew that we needed midfield reinforcement, as well as other needs, but was obviously told that there was no money available, so had no choice but to try and patch things up with loanees. You can't bring in the type of player we needed for free during the January window, so the real mistakes were made during the summer transfer window, when he also had little money to spend thanks to not knowing if we would remain fan owned or sell out to Eisner.
The real culprit in my opinion is Catlin, for not only bringing in a serial quitter (Wolves was the only club that fired him, he ran away from the rest), but allowing players with value, like Bennett to be given away for nothing. Even Storrie wasn't as bad as Catlin in some ways.